Sometimes Mac users face this terrible situation when OS X boots to black screen only and not showing the login screen or desktop. This usually occurs after leaving your MacBook with the lid closed for the night.
First of all, relax – your Mac is still safe and nothing bad have happened with it and with your data. The problem is that OS X was trying to install automatic updates when you closed the lid, so the installation failed.
Here’s the step-by-step tutorial of how to bring your Mac back to life:
1. Perform a PRAM reset by pressing Cmd+Option+P+R on boot
2. Repeat the first step 3 times
3. Now boot your Mac OS X to Single User Mode by holding Cmd+S during power on
4. Wait for the command prompt to appear, showing the line #-root: or something like this
5. Verify the filesystem using the command:
|
1 |
/sbin/fsck -fy |
6. Mount your filesystem by typing:
|
1 |
/sbin/mount -uw / |
7. Now we’ll remove the failed updates installation data. Run these commands:
|
1 2 |
rm -f /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist rm -f /var/db/.AppleUpgrade |
8. Restart by typing:
|
1 |
reboot |
That’s it. Your Mac OS X should boot normally now and you should see the Login screen.
Enjoy 😉